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There have been more mass shootings than days this year

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There have been more mass shootings than days this year

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In any given year, there are about 365 days in that year. "As of December 1, which is the 335th day of the year, there have been 385 mass shootings in the U.S., according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA)" (Silverstein). This number is remarkable showing the difference in Gun Violence that is present in the United States. Children cannot simply just go to school without their parents in fear that their child could die while in a learning environment. This is a scary number, this number has been going up each and everyday. But, when will it all finally come to an end, where gun violence will not have to be an everyday worry?

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There were more mass shootings across the U.S. in 2019 than there were days in the year, according to a gun violence research group. 2019 had the highest number of mass shootings in any year since the research group started keeping track.

By the end of 2019, there were 417 mass shootings in the U.S., according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which tracks every mass shooting in the country. Thirty-one of those shootings were mass murders.

GVA defines a mass shooting as any incident in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter. The group also tracks mass murders as defined by the FBI - incidents in which at least four people are killed. The FBI does not have a formal definition of a mass shooting.

The toll of 417 mass shootings includes several high-profile, mass casualty attacks, some of which happened within 24 hours of each other:

A shootout at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey, on December 10. Three people in the store were killed and three others wounded, including two police officers. The two attackers also died in the shootout. The attackers also shot and killed a police detective at a nearby cemetery before the store attack.

A shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, on November 14, which left two teenage students dead and three wounded. The suspect, a 16-year-old student, shot himself in the head and died the next day.

A shooting in a historic district of Dayton, Ohio, on August 4, with nine people killed and 27 injured.

A shooting at Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, with 22 people killed and 24 wounded. It was the deadliest shooting of the year, and the seventh-deadliest in modern U.S. history.

A shooting at a playground hosting a community festival in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, on July 28. One person was killed and 11 were wounded.

A shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in the San Francisco Bay Area on July 28. Three people were killed - two of them children - and 12 were wounded. Police shot and killed the gunman.

A shooting in a municipal building in Virginia Beach, on May 31, where a former city employee killed 12 people and wounded four.

Trump denounces white supremacy after weekend of violence

The GVA said there was a total of 15,381 gun deaths - including homicides, suicides and accidents - and 29,568 injuries in 2019.

In the end, 2019 had the highest number of mass shootings in any year since 2014, when the Gun Violence Archive started its count. It has surpassed the prior record of 382 mass shootings in 2016. The GVA reported 346 mass shootings in 2017 and 337 in 2018.

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There were more mass shootings than days in 2019

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There were more mass shootings across the U.S. in 2019 than there were days in the year, according to a gun violence research group. 2019 had the highest number of mass shootings in any year since the research group started keeping track.

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In this article, written by the authors at History.com, they allowed us readers to get an inside and in depth view of what the Second Amendment actually means, specifically looking at certain terminology within the amendment , for example, "a well-regulated militia", since the Amendment was written in a time of war. They talk about the Founding Fathers and their perspective of why the Amendment was added to the Bill of Rights. Next, they then talk about how the original meaning for the "Right to Bear Arms" quickly shifted over the centuries and what it means now in the 21st century.

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The Second Amendment - Definition, Text & Rights

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The Second Amendment, ratified in 1791, is one of 10 amendments that form the Bill of Rights. It establishes the right to bear arms and figures prominently in the long-running debate over gun control.

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@jellyfish_guy. "The most significant gun control we've seen in America was when Apple changed the gun emoji to a water gun." 05 Nov. 2019, 7:41 p.m.

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@jellyfish_guy. "The most significant gun control we've seen in America was when Apple changed the gun emoji to a water gun." 05 Nov. 2019, 7:41 p.m.

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Most Americans believe that the United States Government, because it is currently held under the Republican party, will not change or enforce Gun Control laws. Rather, people believe that they continue to 'sweep the issue under the rug' while many innocent children and Americans are dying because of it. To some, the amount of work the Government has had in trying to change and reform Gun Violence is the same as Apple changing an emoji.

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@SenFeinstein. "Guns like the AR-15 aren't used for hunting and they're not viable for home protection. They have only one purpose' fire as many rounds as possible, as quickly as possible. 60% of Americans support outlawing these weapons. Read my op-ed with @ChrisMurphyCT."  17 June 2019, 8:08 a.m.

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@SenFeinstein. "Guns like the AR-15 aren't used for hunting and they're not viable for home protection. They have only one purpose' fire as many rounds as possible, as quickly as possible. 60% of Americans support outlawing these weapons. Read my op-ed with @ChrisMurphyCT."  17 June 2019, 8:08 a.m.

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When dealing with a power gun like the AR-15, a gun that has also been connected in ties with may school shootings, brings a cold chill down many Americans throats. Some believe that a gun like this with this kind of magnitude should not be allowed in the general population, rather it should stay in the war zone. While others believe that it is in their right to own a gun like this, regardless of where they reside within the United States. Many like Senator Feinstein believe that when having a gun like this in your possession, you have one intent with it and one only; kill quick and kill fast.

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Berlatsky, Noah. “Trump and Republicans Don't Hate Gun Control Because of the NRA. They Just Love Guns.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 24 Sept. 2019, www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-republicans-don-t-hate-gun-control-because-nra-they-ncna1057841.

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Berlatsky, Noah. “Trump and Republicans Don't Hate Gun Control Because of the NRA. They Just Love Guns.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 24 Sept. 2019, www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-republicans-don-t-hate-gun-control-because-nra-they-ncna1057841.

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In this diagram, you can see a clear distinction on the basis of where many 2020 Presidential candidates stand on the idea of having stricter background checks laws implemented in the United States. Donald Trump is on the side that best fits into the Republican party's view on Gun Control which is that they feel like there has already been enough done for Gun Violence that does not restrict every American from having a gun. While the other side, filled with mostly Democrats, oppose Trump's views believing that more can be done.

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@SarahHuckabee. "Democrats say we have guns in American because of "corruption". no, we have guns because it's out God-given right enshrined in the Constitution." 12 Sept, 2019, 8:20p.m.

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@SarahHuckabee. "Democrats say we have guns in American because of "corruption". no, we have guns because it's out God-given right enshrined in the Constitution." 12 Sept, 2019, 8:20p.m.

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Many Republicans and Americans believe that it is a God given right to both own and carry a gun. Republicans believe that the Democrats are only trying to get rid of guns and make it harder to obtain one for their own personal and political objective, not for what's best for the people of this country. In the end, it will always be a constant battle between the two parties.

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Wilcock, David, and Ryan Hooper. “Student Slams Trump over Gun Controls after 17 Killed in Florida School Shooting.” Independent.ie, Independent.ie, 15 Feb. 2018, www.independent.ie/world-news/student-slams-trump-over-gun-controls-after-17-killed-in-florida-school-shooting-36606630.html.

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6 ways we can reduce Gun Violence in America

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6 ways we can reduce Gun Violence in America

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Within the United States, Gun Violence is a reoccurring situation that has happened a numerous amount of times, taking the lives of many innocent Americans. Between the ongoing battle over the differning morals and values of the Democratic and Republican parties, there has never been a middle ground as to how to handle the issue, until now. In this article written by Sean Gregory, he lists 6 ways to handle Gun Violence in ways that support each party inevitably giving the country it 'middle ground' with the issue.

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6 Real Ways to We Can Reduce Gun Violence in America

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America is the only developed country with such high rates of gun violence. Here are six steps we can take to reduce those numbers.

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@BlunderingIdiom. "Birth control? BAN IT! Abortion? BAN IT! Gay marriage? BAN IT! Guns? Look, banning things never works. People will find ways to get them." 04 Aug. 2015, 3:37 a.m.
This is a general notion of a mass majority of people living within the United States. In this day in age, the Government has made it almost impossible for a woman to get an abortion or access to birth control, the legalization of gay marriage was just passed and the acceptance of separating mothers from their children is okay. But for gun rights, even by setting up rules and strict regulations for accessing guns in seemingly frowned upon.

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Most Americans Want More Gun Control. Why Doesn’t It Happen? | NYT

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Most Americans Want More Gun Control. Why Doesn’t It Happen? | NYT

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New York Times, The. Most Americans Want More Gun Control. Why Doesn't It Happen? Most Americans Want More Gun Control. Why Doesn't It Happen?, YouTube, 28 Feb. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0JLdN9vx3E.
Many citizens throughout the country have called into action and want answers as to why there are not stricter laws in regards to gun control following the traumatic events that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. In 2017, "60 percent of Americans said that they wanted stricter gun control laws", while 96 percent of Americans were in favor of Universal Background checks. "Most Americans who don't own firearms say easy access to legal guns fuels gun violence."

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Most Americans Want More Gun Control. Why Doesn’t It Happen? | NYT

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Here's where the 2020 Democrats stand on gun control

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Here's where the 2020 Democrats stand on gun control

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With high hopes for the upcoming Presidential election in 2020, Democratic candidates explain their stance on Gun Control. Some Democratic candidates plans for gun control are in favor of a more in depth and 'universal' background and mental health check, while others are lenient upon a new system of a 'buyback program' and some want to "reduce the power of the NRA." But for some Candidates, they want to be able to give citizens who hunt the opportunities to continue to do what they love, but find it hard to find a median.

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Democratic presidential candidates are both renewing their gun control proposals and pushing for more progressive plans in the wake of recent mass shootings in Odessa, Texas, El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, that left more than 30 victims dead.

Interested in Gun Control?

Add Gun Control as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Gun Control news, video, and analysis from ABC News.

Here are the candidates who have put out proposals so far and what we know about the candidates who have yet to do so. The list doesn't include every Democratic candidate, but highlights candidates who have significant positions or experiences that set them apart -- whether they were the first to support a policy, switched positions over the years, held office at the time a mass shooting occurred or have experience with guns through military service.

What could gun legislation look like if a Democrat wins the presidency?

So far, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., has carved out one of the most ambitious paths in the gun policy debate ahead of 2020 -- a plan he calls "the most comprehensive gun violence prevention plan of any candidate for president in decades."

Booker's policy, announced in May, would require all gun owners to acquire a license through the federal government. Currently, 16 states have similar laws to varying degrees.

His plan ultimately pushed federal licensing into the conversation for Democrats, prompting Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., former Obama administration Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke to echo their support for a national gun licensing program or include it in their own policy announcements.

Earlier Thursday, O'Rourke told banks and credit card companies to stop processing assault weapons sales and firearm transactions without a background check. O'Rourke's plan is to drum up public pressure by calling on these financial institutions to deny services to all gun and ammunition manufacturers that produce or sell assault weapons. This call appears to be the first of its kind among the Democratic candidates.

Some have also issued support for buyback programs, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Biden, who authored the 1994 assault weapons ban, is in favor of universal background checks and renewing a ban on assault weapons. However, he has yet to release a detailed plan on gun control reform.

Castro, who unveiled a gun policy after the El Paso shooting, also came out in support of buybacks. In the past, Castro has described buybacks as having "had mixed success," but as being "good policy" in some circumstances.

Warren, who did not include support for buybacks in her gun policy announced in the wake of the El Paso and Dayton shootings, described her focus on reducing the power of the NRA, putting $100 million annually toward gun safety research and reducing gun deaths in the country by 80%.

"Historically, when Congress works to address big national issues, we don't simply pass one law and cross our fingers. Instead, we continue the research -- into new policies and around the consequences of our existing policies -- and then come back on a regular basis to update the law," she wrote in her plan. "We don't do this with guns."

"This ends when I'm president," Warren said.

Warren, who was born and raised in Oklahoma and has said that she values the rights of "law-abiding citizens" to own guns, was one of the last front-runner candidates to unveil a gun policy, despite her efforts to be out in front of a host of other 2020 issues by dominating the arena of plans.

Before announcing her policy, Warren had gained support of gun control advocates for her work in the Senate. After the deadly 2017 shooting in Parkland, Florida, Warren wrote letters to several major companies that invested with gun manufacturers and asked them to pressure the industry to change.

"I encourage you to take action to ensure that the gun companies in which you invest are taking steps to reduce gun violence," Warren wrote to Fidelity, BlackRock, Vanguard Group and others.

In her presidential plan, Warren echoed Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., in pledging to act on gun control within her first 100 days through executive action.

Harris, who announced her plan in April, said she would also require near-universal background checks to be run by people selling more than five guns in a year and revoke the licenses of gun manufacturers and dealers that break the law. She has also talked about renewing the 1994 law that banned assault weapons but expired in 2004 -- an idea with near universal support among Democratic candidates.

For Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., judging gun control legislation is about what would "hurt [her] Uncle Dick in the deer stand," a perspective that comes from her state's value of the outdoors, including hunting and fishing, Klobuchar said in a CNN town hall in February.

"And so I come at it from a little different place than some of my colleagues running for this office," she said.

But those factors don't keep her from supporting universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons, she said. In the past, Klobuchar has applied the same rule about her Uncle Dick to other laws, like preventing people on a terrorist watch list from buying guns.

"Would closing off the loophole in the terrorist watch list hurt my Uncle Dick in his deer stand? Not at all," Klobuchar said in 2016.

Much like Klobuchar, Sanders has many constituents who hunt. According to Vermont's Department of Fish and Wildlife, there are 66,000 residents who hunt and the state rakes in nearly $4 million in hunting license revenue each year.

In the past, the rural connection has led to criticism by some progressives that Sanders was too moderate on gun control, especially in his early career. The Vermont senator has made a point since kicking off his 2020 campaign to show he's evolved.

During the 2016 battle for the Democratic candidacy, Sanders frequently was attacked for repeatedly voting against a 1993 law that established federal background checks. At the time, Sanders told a local newspaper that he supported background checks but was opposed to the federally mandated waiting period that came along with it because it might affect local gun shop sales.

Ahead of 2020, Sanders often brings up his lengthy record to prove a different point: He has consistently voted since the 1980s to ban semi-automatic assault weapons.

I'm running for president because we must end the epidemic of gun violence in this country. We need to take on the NRA, expand background checks, end the gun show loophole and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons.
- Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 20, 2019

An issue that affects candidates and voters nationwide

Only one of the nearly two dozen major Democratic presidential candidates has not seen a mass shooting take place in their state while in office: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii.

For the purpose of this analysis, ABC News defined a mass shooting as an incident where four or more people were shot or killed, not including the shooter.

Harris, for example, who has made gun control a key part of her 2020 platform, held office in California when two of the state's most deadly mass shootings in recent history took place: 14 people were killed in San Bernardino in 2015 and 12 people were killed in a shooting at a college bar in Thousand Oaks in 2018.

Colorado has also seen some of the most notable mass shootings in the country and there were two candidates in the race from the state: Sen. Michael Bennet and former Gov. John Hickenlooper. Hickenlooper dropped out of the presidential race on Aug. 15 and later announced that he would run for a Colorado Senate seat in 2020.

After a shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in 2012 claimed 12 lives, Hickenlooper signed gun control measures that required background checks for private and online gun sales and banned high-capacity magazines. Bennet also voted to ban high-capacity magazines, but in 2010 voted to oppose restricting the right to bear arms and in 2009 voted to allow Amtrak riders to check bags containing guns.

During Biden's nearly five decades in public office, there were dozens of mass shootings, which has in turn made Biden a longtime advocate for gun control. As a U.S. senator, he introduced the assault weapons ban, which was signed into law in 1994.

And after the deaths of 20 first-grade students and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, then-Vice President Biden led a new task force on gun violence. Four months after the tragedy in Connecticut, Biden's modest measure on background checks passed the House, but didn't make it out of the Senate.

Who has switched their stance on guns?

For O'Rourke, a minor switch came just a few months into the 2020 cycle, after Booker announced his proposed plan, and again after the shooting in El Paso shattered his hometown.

Asked about establishing federal gun licensing in May, O'Rourke initially told reporters on the campaign trail that it went "too far." But after a night of reflection, he changed his mind.

"What I think Sen. Booker has done is to push us past that to seek to do even more, and I'm grateful that he's done that and I, you know, as I've thought about it, I really think that we should be looking at everything," O'Rourke said the next day on the trail.

After the shooting in El Paso, O'Rourke also came out in support of a buyback program.

For the former governor of Colorado, the evolution on guns was a longer, more-complicated process.

"This wasn't a Colorado problem. This is a human problem," Hickenlooper told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in 2012, in the wake of the Aurora shooting. "Even if he didn't have access to guns, this guy was diabolical. ... He would have done something to create this horror."

Since then, Hickenlooper has adapted his tone, and more than once. Colorado has passed measures expanding background checks and limiting magazine sizes to 15 rounds, despite backlash from gun rights groups.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who dropped out of the presidential race on Aug. 28, has also evolved, tumbling from an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association to an "F" -- a point of pride, she's said.

"I didn't have much of an understanding about what gun violence actually looks like in a community," Gillibrand said in a 2016 podcast about her past pro-gun stance, when she represented a rural upstate New York district.

She was changed by conversations with families who'd been devastated by gun violence in cities, she said.

Gillibrand was joined by Rep. Tim Ryan, of Ohio, who was also formerly given an "A" rating from the NRA. Ryan shifted his stance more recently than Gillibrand, speaking out after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. He has since donated roughly $20,000 to gun control organizations.

How veterans who were trained to use guns view them on US streets

There were three candidates in the race who were trained to use guns in combat. Even though their legislative records differ, all three support a ban on military-style assault rifles.

After 49 people were killed at Pulse, a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016, Marine veteran and current Rep. Seth Moulton tweeted a photo of himself in uniform holding a military-grade rifle, saying, "I know assault rifles. I carried one in Iraq. They have no place on America's streets."

The rifle the Massachusetts congressman was holding is not available to civilians and was not the same gun that was used in the nightclub shooting.

Moulton, who dropped out of the presidential race on Aug. 23, also authored bipartisan legislation to ban bump stocks, an accessory that increases the firing rate, after the device was used in the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 people in 2017.

"There are common sense reforms, there are common sense laws that we can pass, that are respectful of gun rights but still will reduce this public health crisis in America," he said in an interview on ABC's "This Week" with co-anchor Martha Raddatz after the Las Vegas shooting.

Also after the shooting in Las Vegas, Buttigieg, a U.S. Navy Reserve veteran who was deployed to Afghanistan, similarly denounced AR-style rifles.

"I did not carry an assault weapon around a foreign country so I could come home and see them used to massacre my countrymen," he tweeted.

Gabbard, a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard, has come under criticism for not sponsoring gun control measures that are widely supported by other Democrats in the House. But she has voted to ban assault weapons, and, shortly after the deadly high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, killed 17, Gabbard added her name as a co-sponsor of the Assault Weapons Ban of 2018.

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Here's where the 2020 Democrats stand on gun control

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Democratic presidential candidates are both renewing their gun control proposals and pushing for more progressive plans in the wake of recent mass shootings in Odessa, Texas, El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, that left more than 30 victims dead. Add Gun Control as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Gun Control news, video, and analysis from ABC News.

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@laureldavilacpa. ".@fred_guttenberg talks about how democracy works. The Senate and WH are NOT doing their jobs. The Democrats in the House have already passed #GunControlNow legislation -but it's been help up by the Republican controlled Senate and Trump.
#ImpeachmentTaskForce." 26 Nov. 2019, 11:09 a.m.
In the aftermath following the horrific day, February 14, 2018, where nineteen year old Nikolas Cruz open fired on the campus of Stoneman Douglas High School where he killed 17 people with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. After this traumatic day, many people all over the country called for strict gun control laws, calling out President Trump and the Republican Party for their lenient views on this topic. Many people, just like this father, feel as though not enough is being done.

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NOW WATCH: HENRY BLODGET: The NRA's extremism hurts gun owners, NRA members, and America

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NOW WATCH: HENRY BLODGET: The NRA's extremism hurts gun owners, NRA members, and America

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**Scroll all the way down the article to find the video**
This video first talks about Common Sense Gun Regulations, "as recent polls show that a strong majority of Americans now support such rule." But the NRA (National Rifle Association), does not believe in the Regulations as "it would be a violation of American's constitutional rights." The NRA also believes that by allowing such regulations and rules "it would be a step towards Socialism and an iron-fisted government control." Wayne LaPierre, the NRA Executive Vice President, then gave a speech on February 22, 2018 at the American Conservative Union where he then spoke on how Gun Control "isn't a safety issue, it's a political issue."

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Skye Gould/Business Insider
Donald Trump has repeatedly accused his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton of stripping away gun rights.

The GOP nominee's stance on gun control hasn't been very clear in the past and he has reversed his positions on the issue in recent years.

One thing Trump's 2016 presidential platform is clear on is protecting the rights of gun owners and preventing any legislation that impedes their right to bear arms.

The Republican candidate has railed against Clinton's proposals to tighten gun laws and impose certain restrictions on firearm sales.

Here's where Donald Trump stands on gun control:

Skye Gould/Business Insider

Background Checks

Trump asserts that an "overwhelming majority of people who go through background checks are law-abiding gun owners" and that too many states fail to properly put criminal and mental-health records into the database system.

The GOP nominee wants to focus on fixing defective gun legislation already in place, instead of expanding on it in order to avoid infringing on the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

"What we need to do is fix the system we have and make it work as intended. What we don't need to do is expand a broken system," Trump says on his campaign website.

Stop-and-Frisk

During the first presidential debate the GOP nominee called for "law and order" and recommended using the controversial stop-and-frisk law implemented in New York, which allows police to randomly stop pedestrians and search them for weapons, in order to remove guns from the hands of criminals.

In 2013, a New York judge ruled stop-and-frisk unconstitutional after it found that the law discriminated against African Americans.

Trump asserted that the law helped curb gun-related violence and that crime has spiked since the law's removal. But data indicates that crime as whole actually fell nearly 8% between 2013 and 2016.

Previously Trump suggested stop-and-frisk should be rolled out nationwide, but later walked back his statement and clarified it should be used in high-crime areas such as Chicago.

Assault weapons

Trump claims legislation banning semi-automatic rifles and large magazines has been "a total failure," failing to keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals. As such, he opposes restrictions on assault-weapon sales.

"Law-abiding people should be allowed to own the firearm of their choice. The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own," Trump's platform notes on his website.

The GOP nominee appears to have changed his position on assault weapons since writing his book "The America We Deserve" in 2000. In it Trump wrote, "I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun," PolitiFact notes.

Trump recanted his statement during a debate in March when he was asked if he supported the ban, saying: "I don't support it anymore. I do not support the ban on assault weapons."

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

NRA

In May, Trump received an endorsement from the NRA, despite formerly supporting gun control. He has made no statements on the "Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act."

Mental health

Trump has called for expanding mental-health treatment programs as well as "fixing" our "broken" mental-health system that has allowed "red flags" to slip through the cracks. And while he has called for getting violent people "off the streets," he argues that regulations inspired by shooting incidents involving the mentally ill often penalize gun owners in the aggregate.

'And why does this matter to law-abiding gun owners? Once again, because they get blamed by antigun politicians, gun-control groups, and the media for the acts of deranged madmen," Trump said.

Trump has been unclear about how he would "fix" the mental-health system.

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This is where Donald Trump stands on gun control

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Donald Trump has repeatedly accused his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton of stripping away gun rights. The GOP nominee's stance on gun control hasn't been very clear in the past and he has reversed his positions on the issue in recent years.

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This is where Donald Trump stands on Gun Control

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This is where Donald Trump stands on Gun Control

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Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States, has been known for his extreme conservative ideals. In this article written by Chris Chavez, based of Trump's 2016 Republican Platform, Trump is said to "oppose restrictions on assault-weapon sales", "argues that regulations inspired by shooting incidents involving the mentally ill often penalize gun owners in the aggregate" as he then stated: "'And why does this matter to law-abiding gun owners? Once again, because they get blamed by antigun politicians, gun-control groups, and the media for the acts of deranged madmen," as he believes that he can "fix the mental-health system" that allowed people with mental illnesses to still gain access to guns, but he wants to fix it without taking away anything from law-abiding gun owners. Trump's platform then explains why he believes that Background Checks "infringes on the Second Amendment rights of Americans."

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Skye Gould/Business Insider
Donald Trump has repeatedly accused his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton of stripping away gun rights.

The GOP nominee's stance on gun control hasn't been very clear in the past and he has reversed his positions on the issue in recent years.

One thing Trump's 2016 presidential platform is clear on is protecting the rights of gun owners and preventing any legislation that impedes their right to bear arms.

The Republican candidate has railed against Clinton's proposals to tighten gun laws and impose certain restrictions on firearm sales.

Here's where Donald Trump stands on gun control:

Skye Gould/Business Insider

Background Checks

Trump asserts that an "overwhelming majority of people who go through background checks are law-abiding gun owners" and that too many states fail to properly put criminal and mental-health records into the database system.

The GOP nominee wants to focus on fixing defective gun legislation already in place, instead of expanding on it in order to avoid infringing on the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

"What we need to do is fix the system we have and make it work as intended. What we don't need to do is expand a broken system," Trump says on his campaign website.

Stop-and-Frisk

During the first presidential debate the GOP nominee called for "law and order" and recommended using the controversial stop-and-frisk law implemented in New York, which allows police to randomly stop pedestrians and search them for weapons, in order to remove guns from the hands of criminals.

In 2013, a New York judge ruled stop-and-frisk unconstitutional after it found that the law discriminated against African Americans.

Trump asserted that the law helped curb gun-related violence and that crime has spiked since the law's removal. But data indicates that crime as whole actually fell nearly 8% between 2013 and 2016.

Previously Trump suggested stop-and-frisk should be rolled out nationwide, but later walked back his statement and clarified it should be used in high-crime areas such as Chicago.

Assault weapons

Trump claims legislation banning semi-automatic rifles and large magazines has been "a total failure," failing to keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals. As such, he opposes restrictions on assault-weapon sales.

"Law-abiding people should be allowed to own the firearm of their choice. The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own," Trump's platform notes on his website.

The GOP nominee appears to have changed his position on assault weapons since writing his book "The America We Deserve" in 2000. In it Trump wrote, "I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun," PolitiFact notes.

Trump recanted his statement during a debate in March when he was asked if he supported the ban, saying: "I don't support it anymore. I do not support the ban on assault weapons."

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

NRA

In May, Trump received an endorsement from the NRA, despite formerly supporting gun control. He has made no statements on the "Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act."

Mental health

Trump has called for expanding mental-health treatment programs as well as "fixing" our "broken" mental-health system that has allowed "red flags" to slip through the cracks. And while he has called for getting violent people "off the streets," he argues that regulations inspired by shooting incidents involving the mentally ill often penalize gun owners in the aggregate.

'And why does this matter to law-abiding gun owners? Once again, because they get blamed by antigun politicians, gun-control groups, and the media for the acts of deranged madmen," Trump said.

Trump has been unclear about how he would "fix" the mental-health system.

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This is where Donald Trump stands on gun control

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Donald Trump has repeatedly accused his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton of stripping away gun rights. The GOP nominee's stance on gun control hasn't been very clear in the past and he has reversed his positions on the issue in recent years.

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Written by professors at Cornell University School of Law, they break down the simple phrases like, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," as well as talk about the language presented within the Amendment. It is believed that because of the language used and presented that this is why there is much controversy over the issue of Gun Control and Gun Rights. Hence why the article was written as a way to understand the amendment the best way in a society that has changed dramatically since the original draft of the Amendment centuries ago. Not only do the Professors at Cornell Law throughly explain the language used, they also provide insight into court cases (from 1939-2010) that have called into question this particular amendment.

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The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Such language has created considerable debate regarding the Amendment's intended scope. On the one hand, some believe that the Amendment's phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" creates an individual constitutional right to possess firearms. Under this "individual right theory," the United States Constitution restricts legislative bodies from prohibiting firearm possession, or at the very least, the Amendment renders prohibitory and restrictive regulation presumptively unconstitutional. On the other hand, some scholars point to the prefatory language "a well regulated Militia" to argue that the Framers intended only to restrict Congress from legislating away a state's right to self-defense. Scholars call this theory "the collective rights theory." A collective rights theory of the Second Amendment asserts that citizens do not have an individual right to possess guns and that local, state, and federal legislative bodies therefore possess the authority to regulate firearms without implicating a constitutional right.

In 1939 the U.S. Supreme Court considered the matter in United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174. There, the Court adopted a collective rights approach, determining that Congress could regulate a sawed-off shotgun which moved in interstate commerce under the National Firearms Act of 1934 because the evidence did not suggest that the shotgun "has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia . . . ." The Court then explained that the Framers included the Second Amendment to ensure the effectiveness of the military.

This precedent stood for nearly 70 years until 2008, when the U.S. Supreme Court revisited the issue in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, 478 F.3d 370. The plaintiff in Heller challenged the constitutionality of a Washington D.C. law which prohibited the possession of handguns. In a 5-4 decision, the Court struck down the D.C. handgun ban as violative of that right. The Court meticulously detailed the history and tradition of the Second Amendment at the time of the Constitutional Convention and proclaimed that the Second Amendment established an individual right for U.S. citizens to possess firearms. The Court carved out Miller as an exception to the general rule that Americans may possess firearms, claiming that law-abiding citizens cannot use sawed-off shotguns for any law-abiding purpose. Similarly, the Court in dicta stated that firearm regulations would not implicate the Second Amendment if that weaponry cannot be used for law-abiding purposes. Further, the Court suggested that the United States Constitution would not disallow regulations prohibiting criminals and the mentally ill from firearm possession.

In 2010, the Court further strengthened Second Amendment protections in McDonald v. City of Chicago, 567 F.3d 856. The plaintiff in McDonald challenged the constitutionality of the Chicago handgun ban, which prohibited handgun possession by almost all private citizens. In a 5-4 decision, the Court, citing the intentions of the framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment, held that the Second Amendment applies to the states through the incorporation doctrine. The Court lacked a majority on which specific clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the fundamental right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense. While Justice Alito and his supporters looked to the Due Process Clause, Justice Thomas in his concurrence stated that the Privileges and Immunities Clause should justify incorporation.

Several questions still remain unanswered, however, such as whether regulations less stringent than the D.C. statute implicate the Second Amendment, whether lower courts will apply their dicta regarding permissible restrictions, and what level of scrutiny the courts should apply when analyzing a statute that infringes on the Second Amendment. Generally, in constitutional law, courts subject statutes and ordinances to three levels of scrutiny, depending on the issue at hand:

Circuit Court opinions following Heller suggests that courts are willing to uphold the following:

Regulations prohibiting weapons on government property. US v Dorosan, 350 Fed. Appx. 874 (5th Cir. 2009) (upholding defendant's conviction for bringing a handgun onto post office property).

Regulations prohibiting possession of a handgun as a juvenile delinquent. , 583 F.3d 8 (1st Cir. 2009) (holding that the Juvenile Delinquency Act ban of juvenile possession of handguns did not violate the Second Amendment).

Regulations requiring a permit to carry concealed weapon. Kachalsky v County of Westchester, 701 F.3d 81 (2nd Cir. 2012) (holding that a New York law preventing individuals from obtaining a license to possess a concealed firearm in public for general purposes unless the individual showed proper cause did not violate the Second Amendment).

More recently, the U.S. Supreme Court reinforced its Heller ruling in Caetano v. Massachusetts, 136 S.Ct. 1027 (2016). The Court struck down a Massachusetts statute which prohibited the possession or use of "stun guns" by finding that "stun guns" are protected under the Second Amendment. While ruling largely on the reasoning of Heller, the opinion was per curiam and therefore did not significantly add to Second Amendment jurisprudence.

In 2022, the Supreme Court further expanded upon the precedent set by Heller in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In Bruen, the Court struck down a New York law requiring parties interested in purchasing a handgun for the use of self-defense outside of the home to obtain a license because the law issued licenses on a "may-issue" rather than a "shall issue" basis. This "may issue" licensing method allowed state authorities to deny interested parties public use licenses for firearms if the interested party was unable to show "proper cause" as to why they have a heightened need for self-protection over the general population.

Furthermore, the Court disavowed the use of "means-end tests" many jurisdictions had adopted for the purposes of interpreting the Second Amendment, instead ruling that a Second Amendment analysis is limited to evaluating the historical nature of the right and whether a given use of a firearm or other weapon is deeply rooted in the history of the United States. Post- Bruen, courts can no longer use a standard scrutiny analysis like the one seen in Kachalsky v. County of Westchester to determine if a gun regulation is constitutional. Instead, a government wishing to place restrictions on firearm ownership must "affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms."

In a concurrence, Justice Kavanaugh joined by Justice Roberts emphasizes that Bruen is not intended to invalidate "shall-issue" licensing structures or other restrictions on firearm ownership including fingerprinting, background checks, mental health evaluations, mandatory training requirements, and potential other requirements. Additionally, this concurrence draws a line between objective gun control measures, where an individual must pass a set of predetermined requirements, which are constitutional, and subjective gun control measures, such as licensing at a state official's discretion, which are not.

It remains to be seen how the ruling in Bruen and the sentiments espoused in this concurrence will influence cases going forward.

See also: C onstitutional Amendment.

[Last updated in June of 2022 by the Wex Definitions Team]

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The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Such language has created considerable debate regarding the Amendment's intended scope.